<\/p>\n
The massive oil spill in the Gulf <\/p>\n In hunting and gathering That the world is otherwise is a Many of us know through personal If I am on target this means that Scale Matters<\/b><\/p>\n Anyone who has tried to contact a Science writer Ed Yong writes that From a Pagan perspective this Sociopaths to the top<\/b><\/p>\n Sociopaths are the worst of all Men like Lloyd Blankfein<\/a> and Don Blankenship<\/a> <\/b> <\/span>made no inventions, came up with no new products to make life Big organizations are sociopathic What we need and need desperately Small is Good<\/b><\/p>\n My own academic profession, Political Small countries require I recently completed a book As for us? <\/span>We have Teabaggers and others who want Our society has become <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico raises a question that has been raised in other contexts over the last year or so: has the scale of things we attempt as a society come to exceed our ability to do them well? What do BP’s failure, Goldman Sachs’ failure and Massey Energy’s failure have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,9,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-social-and-political-theory","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nof Mexico raises a question that has been raised in other contexts over the
\nlast year or so: has the scale of things we attempt as a society come to exceed our
\nability to do them well? What do BP’s failure, Goldman Sachs’ failure and Massey Energy’s failure have in common? <\/span>I think a
\nPagan perspective carries this insight farther than most. <\/span>If the world itself is fundamentally a
\nsacred place then every human activity has an ethical component. <\/span>Every one. <\/span>And when that component is removed, the world is out of
\nkilter and we are injured to our very core.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nsocieties, where we as a species spent most of our existence, there is no
\nseparation between daily life and spirituality. <\/span>We evolved as creatures within a meaningful world. <\/span>As our Sabbats recognize, everything in
\nlife has its sacramental dimension just as virtually everything sacramental has its useful dimension.
\n<\/span>In philosophical terms there are no facts that are not immersed within a
\ncontext of value. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nconceit with its deepest roots in Western Christianity, particularly during and
\nafter the Reformation. <\/span>A ‘fallen’ world has no value of its own, and so from this perspective our only ethical
\nobligations are to God and to one another.<\/p>\n
\nexperience that this is false. <\/span>I
\nwill argue below that not only is it false, a world experienced this way will
\ndrive us mad.<\/p>\n
\nany human institution that frees itself from ethical standards does not deserve
\nto exist. <\/span>Period. There is an
\nethical dimension to farming, logging, fishing, and all other uses of the
\nnatural world, just as there is in dealing with fellow humans. <\/span>What we call morality is embedded in
\nthe world<\/a>. <\/p>\n
\nhuman being at a large organization realizes this is becoming increasingly
\ndifficult. <\/span>Human beings can
\ncommunicate, and large organizations are uninterested in CO-mmunicating. <\/span>They excel at giving orders and telling
\nyou like it is. This tendency towards eliminating human interaction has
\ntroubling implications beyond the obvious.<\/p>\n
\nresearchers from the University of Texas found that students who experienced
\ncomplete lack of control over experimental events were more likely to perceive
\nnon-existent patterns and that unhappy outcomes were more likely the result of
\ndeliberate malicious or conspiratorial action. <\/span><\/b>Perception
\nof personal powerlessness leads to a greater tendency towards superstition,
\nconspiracy theories, and false conclusions<\/a>. Our national mindlessmess is
\nembedded in institutions that are both amoral and destroy the ability of those
\nrendered powerless by them to truly understand what is happening. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nmeans we are naturally embedded within a network of ethical relation with
\nothers, and when that network disappears or is rendered powerless, we go
\nmad. <\/span>The world is permeated by
\nvalue and morality and when we are cut off from it the consequences are
\ndevastating. Thoughtful observers are deeply concerned about the growing
\nirrationality within American society.
\n<\/span>This degeneration may well be linked with the rise of huge amoral
\norganizations. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nhuman beings because they have no conscience. <\/span>Sociopathic institutions, especially corporations and
\ngovernments, attract them as leaders and give them far more power and wealth
\nthan could ever normally be exercised by these people based on their actual
\ntalents. <\/span>Our leading institutions
\nthat so infatuate us with their power have become divorced from all decency,
\nalthough they continually hire intellectual whores to give us the impression
\nthey care.<\/p>\n
\neasier or healthier or better for others.
\n<\/span>They simply manipulate others to increase their wealth and power. But they claim to <\/span>do God’s work<\/a> and that <\/span>their critics are evi<\/a>l. They appear to be men without noticeable consciences. <\/span>It also appears that Alan Greenspan of the Federal
\nReserve is no better: a clever incompetent shielded from the consequences of
\nhis actions by sycophants while telling all around him how mere Americans are
\nunable to understand<\/a> the intricacies of what he had mastered. <\/span>And then through his mastery,
\nleading us off a cliff others had long warned about. <\/span>The Fed has learned nothing from Greenspan’s failure because
\nit is fundamentally an amoral institution<\/a>, sociopathic to its core. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nand attract people with talents harmonious with their nature. <\/span>Decent people don’t often rise to the
\ntop in such cultures. Jerks like Blankfein, Blankenship, and Greenspan do<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nare measures to return our institutions to a human scale. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nScience, has contributed to our lack of understanding. Political scientists are
\nmesmerized by power and love to study the big powerful states. <\/span>Hardly any notice that the world’s most
\nsuccessful countries in terms of quality of life are small ones. <\/span>Places like Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
\nIreland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Canada can be included
\nas well. <\/span>It’s territory is huge
\nbut its population is less than California’s. <\/span>These countries, often enormously successful, are
\nhardly ever studied and the scholar who chooses to do so will at best usually
\nremain marginally employed. And so what stands in front of us is rarely
\nnoticed.<\/p>\n
\nintelligent citizens who are not blinded by belief in their own omnipotence
\neither individually or collectively.
\n<\/span>Often, it seems, their inhabitants rise to the occasion. <\/span>Norway can drill safely in the North
\nSea, and has the safest of all records<\/a>.
\n<\/span>The Netherlands can build levees and dikes that work<\/a>. <\/span>Most, perhaps all, have superior health systems. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nchapter in partnership with David Hardwick, <\/span>one of the men most responsible for modern Vancouver, Canada
\nbeing the way it is: almost universally acclaimed as one of the world’s most
\nsuccessful cities. <\/span>As I worked
\nwith David, I was struck with the importance transparency of information and
\ninput into decisions by people impacted by decisions had in making Vancouver
\nwhat it is. <\/span>There were deliberate
\nefforts to empower average residents rather than render them powerless
\nresources manipulated by the Canadian equivalents of Alan Greenspan. <\/span>The results are impressive and
\nacknowledged worldwide. <\/span><\/p>\n
\ngovernment to keep its hands off of Medicare, and other exercises in
\nimbecility. And we can destroy on a larger scale than anyone else, and do so
\nwherever we want. <\/span>As Nietzsche
\nobserved, “Power makes stupid.” As well as amoral.<\/p>\n
\ndysfunctional because it has become dominated by huge conglomerations of power
\nthemselves dominated by the amoral.
\n<\/span>If salvation exists, it exists through empowering smaller communities
\nand groups and breaking up the big ones.
\n<\/span>It probably means that in places those whose environment has made
\nstupid, as with so many Teabaggers, will predominate. <\/span>But once events are on a scale they can directly understand
\nrather than having to depend on something like Fox News, the best of them will
\nlearn, and learn quickly, to become the responsible citizens they so rarely are
\ntoday.<\/p>\n